62 The greater summer-leafing trees 



planks are valuable for linings and for brakes because 

 fire resisting. If we want the best timber we should 

 plant by rivers ; and also it is in such situations we get 

 the best effects from it, since the spiral leaves go best 

 with other waterside trees and plants. 



Like so many other trees, it is all the better for group- 

 ing and massing, and we get a much better effect in that 

 way than by mixing it up in plantations, as is so 

 commonly done. The fact that it does best in certain 

 soils should encourage us to plant it there in masses. 

 Better three acres of it than three trees. 



As with so many trees there are varieties, but from 

 the forester's point of view they are no good. Botanists 

 class the Yellow Willow (Salix vitellina) as a variety 

 of the white, but from our point of view the trees are 

 distinct in colour, form, and size, as is at once apparent 

 where the two kinds are seen growing side by side. 

 Hybrids between the White and the Crack Willow come 

 nearer to our tree in dignity and effect, but when we 

 plant the White Willow it is better to have nothing to 

 do with any but the true form, always, where possible, 

 raised from seed ; and nurserymen who grow Willows 

 should take note of this need. 



The Crack Willow (Salix fragilis). In much wood- 

 land country south of London the Crack Willow is not 

 very common and occurs only in an incidental sort 

 of way, so that little or no thought is given to it, even 

 by those who know the value of our native trees. But 

 in Essex and other counties it is often a handsome tree, 

 and a profitable one where its uses are known. Gilpin 

 asserted that the Willow did not harmonize well with 

 British timber trees, and some writers have reiterated 

 this absurd statement. Of all the trees grown in Britain, 



